Understanding Power: the indispensable Chomsky (6 page)

So just take a look at something like the nuclear freeze movement. The nuclear freeze had virtually no support in the media, no support among politicians, and certainly no support by business—but nevertheless, 75 percent of the American population supported it.
  ⁴⁸
Well,
that’
s certainly not reflected in editorial opinion or in opinion pieces in the media. Or take what’s certainly the most discussed media issue of the 1980s, Nicaragua. I’ve done a lot of analysis of opinion pieces in the national media, like the
Washington Post and
the
New York Times
, and it’s uniform—well over 99 percent of them are anti-Sandinista, and think the Sandinista Party government has to be eliminated; the only issue is how you do it: do you do it by attacking them with contra forces, or by some other means? Well, that does
not
reflect public opinion. I mean, most of the public thought we should just get out of Nicaragua and leave them alone—they didn’t even know which side we were on, but thought we had no business there, so let’s get away. That certainly wasn’t reflected. Then among the minority of the population who in fact knew which side we were on, there was strong opposition to any method of overthrowing the government.
  ⁴⁹
But that position is inexpressible in the media.

Let me just give you an illustration. Six months in early 1986 and six months in early 1987 happened to have been the periods of greatest debate over Nicaragua, right before the big contra aid bills came to Congress. The
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
in those two periods published only two columns that even raised the
possibility
that the Sandinistas should be permitted to survive. One was by the Nicaraguan Ambassador.
  ⁵⁰
The other was by a guy named Kevin Cahill, a doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, who’s a specialist in tropical diseases and who’s worked extensively through the area. He had a column in which he said, there’s only one country in Latin America where the government cares about the population, it’s Nicaragua: here’s what they’re doing, we should let them do it.
  ⁵¹
That was the one exception of an opinion column even
considering
this position in practically a year of intensive coverage of the issue in the two most important newspapers in the country. Now, that certainly does not reflect popular opinion—in fact, it doesn’t even reflect opinion in the academic profession in this case: the media do not accept contributions from Latin America scholars on this issue, just because they disagree.
  ⁵²

W
OMAN
: There were people who lost their jobs in the media for reporting other points of view
.

Oh, that happens all the time. Ray Bonner is the famous case—he was a freelancer the
New York Times
picked up who made the mistake of actually reporting what was going on for about a year in El Salvador. He was bounced off to work in the “Metro” section or something, and then he just dropped out.
  ⁵³
And there are lots of other reporters who have just ended up leaving: Sy Hersh, for example, left the
New York Times
because they wouldn’t let him do the kinds of stories he wanted to do.

Look, I have a good friend who’s one of the seven or eight main editors of a major American newspaper, and he happens to be very much opposed to U.S. policies towards Central America, and towards the arms race, as well as several other things. He tries to craft editorials which will just barely sneak through under the ideological barrier, but will sort of hint at some of the things he would like people to see—he has to make a very careful calculation as to what will make it in.

W
OMAN
: But isn’t that what this man over here is saying?

No—that ideological barrier reflects
elite
opinion, it’s not that the
public
is going to object. The public’s not going to mind if the editor comes out with these things; in fact, this guy happens to be in a liberal city, the public will applaud—it’s in Boston.

W
OMAN
: So why is there that barrier?

Well, I once asked another editor I know at the
Boston Globe
why their coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is so awful—and it is. He just laughed and said, “How many Arab advertisers do you think we have?” That was the end of that conversation.

M
AN
: That’s not true, unless he was joking
.

It
is
true, and he wasn’t joking. That wasn’t joking.

M
AN
: The editor doesn’t pay attention to the advertising—he doesn’t care about the advertising
.

Are you kidding? If he doesn’t care about the advertising, he will not be editor any longer.

M
AN
: You’re saying that the
Globe’
s editorial decisions are based on trying to keep advertising revenue from—what?

From dropping. It means retailers aren’t going to advertise there and the
Globe’s
going to go under.

M
AN
: But the
Globe
has a monopoly market
.

They do not.

M
AN
: What are they going to do, advertise in the
Herald
[second Boston newspaper]?

Absolutely.

M
AN
: I think that really is simplistic, I really do
.

This actually
happened
, it’s happened a few times. Most of the time it never happens, because the newspapers never deviate. But in 1976 or ’77,
New York Times
advertising and stock values began to drop very slightly. There were immediately articles about this in the
Wall Street Journal
and
Business Week
, pointing out what was going on—
Business Week
in fact said, if the
New York Times
doesn’t realize that it’s a business, it’s not going to be in business any longer.
  ⁵⁴

Well, what was happening was that the
Times
had taken a mildly supportive editorial position on a New York tax bill that business was opposed to, and advertising started slipping off a little, stocks started dropping very slightly. And the
Times
then shifted its entire editorial staff: John Oakes went out, all the liberal editors went out, and a whole bunch of new people came in. All it took was a slight change on the stock market. Now, in that case it was a matter of such a slight deviation that you’d need a microscope to see it—suppose they took a major deviation, what would happen to their stock?

In countries that have a wider range of democratic politics than we do, where there really is a danger that some political party might impose different policies, this sort of thing happens all the time.

M
AN
: I guess I don’t know what it’s like on a big paper. I have a great deal of autonomy as a reporter working for a small local paper
.

A small local paper’s a different story. But suppose you start doing things that are harmful to local business interests—I think you’ll find that it’s not easy to keep doing it. You can probably do good reporting on international affairs if you want, just because they don’t care so much in a small-town paper.

M
AN
: I don’t know—I don’t take those interests into account at all. I’m the business writer for my county, and I can do what I want
.

You
think
you do what you want; see, Tom Wicker at the
New York Times
thinks he does what he wants, too—and he’s right. But what he wants is what power wants.

M
AN
: I’ve just followed my instincts, and I’ve never had any problems
.

Have you ever done things that caused an uproar in the business community?

M
AN
: Possibly
.

But that’s the question: I think if you had, you would have heard about it. I mean, if you expose corruption, that’s fine …

Filters on Reporting

W
OMAN
: Is this a conscious effort on the part of the press, or would you say it just plays out economically because they want to sell newspapers and the public is buying it?

It has nothing to do with the public.

W
OMAN
: Advertisers?

Well, yes, advertisers. See, the press does not make money on people buying newspapers, they lose money on people buying newspapers.
  ⁵⁵
But the press
is
business interests—I mean, the major press is huge corporate interests, the small press is more local business interests, but either way it’s kept alive by other businesses, through advertising.

M
AN
: One of the biggest businesses around here is development, and I continually present both points of view, as far as environmental issues versus development issues
.

And business takes both points of view, business is on both sides—like, in this region, maintaining tourism is a huge thing for business, and that means maintaining the environment. And you know, the rich folk who move out here from New York also want to maintain the environment. So you’ve got very powerful, privileged interests on “the other side” of this issue. See, you happened to have picked an issue where the business community is split, and therefore the press will present “both sides,” But try to start doing something that undermines
all
business interests as such—you will quickly find that you’re not a journalist anymore. I mean, they may be willing to keep you on as a maverick just for the fun of it, but if you ever get to the point where you’re influencing people’s attitudes about public policy or power, you’re not going to stay on. And that’s exactly why people who say those things
don’t
stay on.

M
AN
: I posed this question to the president of the Chamber of Commerce: “Is economic growth really a desirable thing?” That’s a radical question, and I got an answer to it
.

But it’s
not a
radical question here, because preventing economic growth is helping business interests in this region. You happen to be in a special position on that issue. Suggest a redistribution of income, increase of business taxes for welfare purposes. Try that.

W
OMAN
: But that’s not reporting
.

Why not? He says, “opinions on both sides.” That’s an opinion on both sides.

Look, one of the things that Edward Herman and I did in
Manufacturing Consent
was to just look at the sources that reporters go to. In a part that I wrote, I happened to be discussing Central America, so I went through fifty articles by Stephen Kinzer of the
New York Times
beginning in October 1987, and just asked: whose opinions did he try to get? Well, it turns out that in fifty articles he did not talk to one person in Nicaragua who was pro-Sandinista. Now, there’s got to be
somebody—you know, Ortega’s mother, somebody’s
got to be pro-Sandinista. Nope, in fact, everybody he quotes is anti-Sandinista. [Daniel Ortega was the Sandinista President.]

Well, there are polls, which the
Times
won’t report, and they show that all of the opposition parties in Nicaragua combined had the support of only 9 percent of the population. But they have 100 percent of Stephen Kinzer—everyone he’s found supports the opposition parties, 9 percent of the population. That’s in fifty articles.
  ⁵⁶

M
AN
: I think your indictment of subtlety is again simplistic. For instance, I read an article you wrote for
The Progressive
about reporters’ dependence on government sources—that’s really important, you have to get economic figures, you have to develop long-term sources, you can’t get the information otherwise.
  ⁵⁷
Why do you have such a low opinion of the readership to think that they’re not going to pick up on the subtlety? It may be in the fifth or sixth paragraph, but you can see the reporter’s own opinion there
.

I don’t understand what you’re saying. What I’m saying is that if you look at the sources reporters select, they are not sources that are expert, they are sources that represent vested interests: that’s propaganda.

W
OMAN
: But I don’t think the journalists say that to themselves—they want to think they’re doing an honest job
.

Sure they do, but you can see exactly how it works. Suppose that as a reporter you start going outside of vested interests. You will find, first of all, that the level of evidence that’s required is far higher. You don’t need verification when you go to vested interests, they’re self-verifying. Like, if you report an atrocity carried out by guerrillas, all you need is one hearsay witness. You talk about torture carried out by an American military officer, you’re going to need videotapes. And the same is true on every issue.

I mean, if a journalist quotes an unnamed “high U.S. government official,” that suffices as evidence. What if they were to quote some dissident, or some official from a foreign government that’s an enemy? Well, they’d have to start digging, and backing it up, and the reporter would have to have mountains of evidence, and expect to pick up a ton of flack, and maybe lose their job, and so on. With factors of that kind, it’s very predictable which way they’re going to go. And reporters generally pick the easy way; I mean, the laziness is phenomenal.